What Love We Know
by Shark8
Summary: A sudden tragedy strikes and leaves the team shaken and trying to deal with the turmoil of having their friend wrenched out of their lives so unexpectedly. This story explores the impact of the death on the team and starts just after most of the events in Coldharted.
1. Chapter 1

**What Love We Know**

* * *

"You who do not know what will happen tomorrow, what will your life will be like? For you are a smoky vapor, visible for only an instant, before dissolving into thin air, disappearing."

– James 4:14

* * *

It was a bright November day, and though the sun was shining brightly overhead it was still abnormally cold from the snow-machines that had blanketed the North American continent with ice and snow. It would take a couple of days to melt away, even if the temperatures remained above freezing.

The impact of the sudden widespread and premature cold would be hard to evaluate in modern environmental terms, but was easy in the parlance of the early settlers of the continent: it was going to be a hard winter. Yet the rolling hills of South Dakota provided a picturesque scene counter to these facts.

'Snow…' Kid Flash thought to himself in lazy, disorganized thoughts. He knew something was wrong, possibly very wrong, and still felt content to stay where he was. 'The sky… why, why am I here?'

'Right.' Kid Flash thought as he remembered what had happened. 'I had to run cross-country because the Zeta-tubes were down… still down.'

There was a flash of yellow in his memory, and a sense of flying… or falling. At the speeds he had been running there wasn't much of a practical difference once your feet left the ground. But he remembered tumbling through the air, bouncing off the ground more than once… 'And then what?'

'And then I saw…' Kid Flash recalled only a brief instant of seeing a black circle pierced by a red lightning-bolt before waking up here.

Now Kid Flash _knew_ something was wrong. It didn't matter though, he was oddly content and if he'd cared to he would have gotten up; it was just this blackness was catching up with him… it was one thing that he, Wally West, couldn't outrun.

The next thing Kid Flash saw was a rabbit poking its nose at him – likely just looking for food. Wally mentally smiled and thought 'Hello bunny.'

It was also the last thing he saw as the blackness closed in on him for the final time.

* * *

**Author's Notes:** I wanted to keep the intro short and sweet, so to speak. In fact, with a little tweaking I could make it into a 500-word short-story, and was inspired by a picture on diviantart I saw of KF laying in the snow, bleeding, and looking at a bunny.

The picture is "YJ: Hello Bunny" by MoritaTsubaki if you want to look at the full thing; and a cropped down version is the picture for this story. I got her permission to use it, so you guys get to see it too.

Comments and criticisms are welcome.


	2. Chapter 2

｢ Sickness is a thing of the spirit.｣

– Translated Japanese Proverb

* * *

"I don't want to be here." Connor Kent stated, looking more than slightly uncomfortable in his formalwear when he fingered the bow-tie he was wearing. He was obviously uncomfortable, but those that knew him suspected it was being at a funeral, a funeral for one of his friends, that had him feeling off-balance. He was less than a year old, after all.

"Nobody does." Artemis replied looking at the ground, she felt awful every time she thought about the last things she'd said to Wally and the perverse pleasure she'd taken from the 'privilege' of informing him of the relationship between Megan and Connor. It wasn't as though she'd done it out of spite though, after all while Wally could be really irritating at times she didn't dislike him… the truth was that she'd just realized, only about a month before he died, that she _liked_ him. 'What a jealous bitch!' she thought at herself angrily, 'Wally… deserved better.'

"No, nobody does." Robin agreed. He wasn't happy, but he wasn't as sad as he'd thought he'd be… it was more of a numbness than sadness. He looked around and saw several people he knew: Wally's parents, his uncle Barry Allen (the Flash), and Hal Jordan. All of them looked more grieved than he felt, and a small part of his mind was terrified at that revelation.

He looked down at his watch and wondered where Zatana and Megan were. Sure they hadn't been close to Kid Flash, but they hadn't been any further than Artemis or Superboy.

Kaldur was talking with the parents now, likely expressing the team's sorrow. That sense of responsibility was exactly why he'd been selected to be the team's leader, but Robin didn't envy having the burden of leadership right now. Besides, he would have felt particularly phony talking about how the team felt their loss when all he felt was numb.

No, getting all this done and over with was good. The sooner it was over the sooner he could put on his costume and patrol the city with Batman. _That_, at least, he felt.

'Hell,' Robin snorted, as he remembered the smile on the corpse: half-satisfied/half-whimsical… 'Wally's dead and he still shows more emotion than I'm feeling.'

• • • • • • • • • • •

Batman had seemed rather more understanding than anticipated when he'd made his request for an extended leave of absence, which had been granted immediately. Still, Kaldur was… uneasy. He did not want to return to Atlantis, but he needed to. He needed to discuss these things with his king, Aquaman, and his best friend, Garth. Perhaps they would be able to help him with the irrational sense of guilt he carried, and it _was_ irrational: he'd been nowhere near Kid flash, nor had he given him that mission, nor could he have even suspected something like this would happen _after_ everything was taken care of… yet his heart still felt the weight of guilt.

"Recognize: Aqualad (B02)" The computer intoned as he stepped into the Zeta-tube.

• • • • • • • • • • •

That night, crouched on the rooftops, Batman ran over the situation in his mind. The boy's death had touched nearly every member of the team profoundly, which was itself a cause for concern. Also the team was, for all intents and purposes, leaderless now… and without a leader they would be useless for the covert missions they were chosen for.

If the dissolution of the team had been the goal, then the culprit had chosen the exact person to target at the exact right time: all the morale gained from the success against the ice fortresses was instantly lost. But that presumed there _was_ a culprit, that they knew of the team's existence before they'd done any major public displays, and that they knew how to kill without trace. All of that was mere suspicion, the boy hadn't had any injuries inconsistent from a high-speed impact and _could_ have been something as benign as tripping over his own feet.

If there was another force at work in these events it was likely someone whose 'chess master' skills outpaced his own. That was a short list, and all the individuals he knew who were on it did have a distinct _feel_ that this lacked.

Perhaps he ought to ask The Question: "Could there be a new player?"

• • • • • • • • • • •

Robin and Artemis had taken the Zeta-transport together since they both lived in Gotham, but the boy wonder was so silent… it was almost Batman-like scary.

"Robin…" Artemis put her hand on his shoulder before he could grapnel-off into the evening. "If you need to talk."

"I'm fine." Robin replied, both aware and ashamed at how emotionless the tone sounded to his own ears.

"Go home, I've got work to do." He said as he keyed his grapnel and practically flew to a rooftop only to disappear in the glint of the setting sun off the buildings that were Gotham City.

Artemis stood there for a few minutes before walking toward her house, thinking 'But what if I needed to talk?'

• • • • • • • • • • •

Gotham was an oddity. It was at once the home of two of the most recognized and effective crime-fighters, home to top-notch police academes, and detective agencies and yet it still seemed to spawn evildoers like flies. Sure, most of the high-profile criminals had a bed at Arkham, but normal crime was unimpacted. In fact, it almost seemed like more petty criminals came into the city precisely to ply their trades, partly to support the infrastructures needed by the more prestigious criminals, and partly because those famous criminals would draw attention away from them.

So it was that one could always find shady things going on in the seedier side of town. It was the home of various black and grey markets, and the various people that worked therein. Tonight was no exception.

Robin looked down at the houses being robbed by a couple of ordinary gangsters and smiled. This he could _feel_, this he could **do**. He cracked his knuckles as he said "Good. This looks like fun."

The first of the thugs was returning to the house when a boot knocked into his side with enough force to crack several ribs. The boy wonder using the sudden change in momentum to flip in mid air and land on the ground.

The other two of the thugs were just now bringing a home theater system's components out of the house.

"Did you hear something?" One asked the other.

"No. Just your clumsy feet." The other snarkily replied, looking in the wrong direction to see a bolo whipping through the air and twine itself around his legs.

Goon two yelled as he tripped and goon one fell over him, only to have a small marble-like thing land in front of his face. The little pellet sat there a moment before it gave off the sound of gas being released… it was the last thing he heard before waking up with his hands behind his back and in a pair of handcuffs.

The other two goons were likewise positioned, and the group immobilized by their arms all linking together so they made a little circle. The question soon came up on how long they'd have to wait before the police picked them up and nobody guessed close at all… though mostly because Robin never thought to inform the police before he went on his way to find another crime.


	3. Chapter 3

"I've found out why people laugh. They laugh because it hurts... because it's the only thing that'll make it stop hurting."  
– Robert A. Heinlein

* * *

"Kaldur!" came the cry, both joyful and happy, and lifted Aqualad's spirits instantly. "It's great to see you!"

"Garth." Kaldur replied, genuinely happy to see his best friend "It is good to see you, as well."

"What brings you back so soon? I would have thought the surface world would have you tied up like two drunken squid."

"I have taken a leave of absence." Kaldur said softly, then softer still "I am saddened by a death on my team."

"Oh." Garth's face instantly dropped to an earnest and somber expression, "I'm sorry to hear that… if there's anything I can do for you, my friend, don't hematite to ask."

"Thank you. I think that first I will want to talk with King Orin."

"Ah." Garth replied, yes it was a sort of noncommental response… but then again all that was needed was a sort of 'I hear you and I understand', for which it served.

Kaldur nodded and then began his swim to the royal palace. His king ans mentor would doubtless have an ear to hear, wisdom to share, and an understanding heart. Despite romanticized tails of Atlantis, the undersea kingdom had seen more than its share of violence and strife… king Orin certainly was no stranger to such tragedy.

But when Aqualad came to the palace he found that the king was not there, but would be in residence again in a day or two. After being turned away from the palace, Kaldur found himself swimming along the undersea 'roads' and a deep sadness falling over him.

• • • • • • • • • • •

There was a knock on the door followed by Zatanna's voice calling out a tentative "Megan?"

Megan sighed, as much as she loved having the younger girl around, sometimes she was… annoying. Especially the past few days, ever since she'd skipped out on Wally's funeral; Zatanna had been knocking on her door then, too, and bothering her to attend. She had refused…

She didn't want to think about that, but her thoughts involuntarily went back to that day:

_Zatanna knocked on the door, with a tentative "Megan, are you ready? It's time to go."_

_M'gann M'orzz winced at the sharp sound. She did __not__ want to go to this funeral. Foremost on her mind was her ability to maintain the composure to keep herself from reverting to her true form, that of a White Martian. If that happened there would be pandemonium, she __knew__ that she would cause terror and panic in the humans, and if her 'uncle' was there… Secondly she hadn't been all that close to Wally, sure he'd been cute with his willingness to display affection, but he'd been annoying in both his persistency and in his mannerisms._

_No, it was too great a risk; besides all that, if she showed up to his funeral without really __liking__ him… wouldn't that be dishonoring his memory?_

"_I'm not going!" Megan shouted back, before shape-shifting into an amorphous blob. She chose the form because it was one of the basic meditation forms Martians had adopted; it took a surprising amount of concentration to maintain a body with no distinct morphology. Whatever happened, she wasn't going to the funeral, and no one could make her._

"Megan? Are you ok?" Zatanna's concerned voice came through the door. "You haven't been yourself for weeks now."

"I'm fine!" M'gann almost shouted at the figure behind the door and nearly didn't hold back an added, and spite filled, 'What would you know about _me_!'

That girl should seriously learn to mind her own business… M'gann though sourly as she toyed with the idea of implanting a 'suggestion' into the younger girl's mind.

• • • • • • • • • • •

Zatanna was worried, obviously. Her friend had taken a turn toward an almost hermit-like lifestyle in the recent few weeks… it was very unlike the very sociable Megan that Zatanna had come to know. If she didn't know any better she'd have sworn that Megan had simply picked up Connor's rather asocial habits… but that was the thing, Connor had been more social, more emotional, more open and ultimately more honest than Megan. When she'd brought her concerns about Megan to him he said simply "She doesn't _want_ help."

Megan wasn't the only person she was concerned about; Robin seemed to be… lost. She didn't know how else to describe it, he was still _there_, yes, and he knew what he was doing, but it was as if he'd lost contact with his inner self… as if he wew a shadow or ghost of who he was, stuck forever on 'autopilot' and unable to _live_.

Her father would know what to do… but her father was gone. _Gone._ She blinked back tears. _Her father. Robin. Kid Flash. Her team._ Would anybody just _stay_ with her?

She looked at the wall, the lights wavering as tears flooded her eyes: what had she'd done to the universe to make everyone abandon her?

• • • • • • • • • • •

Robin looked out across the city one last time before launching himself down onto the old Davidson building and the predetermined rendezvous-point with Batman for tonight's patrol.

It'd been a boring, non eventful night. Even in Gotham there were quiet nights. Sometimes you could tell when it was the prelude to things happening, but tonight had none of that; it was well and truly a peaceful night… and Robin hated it.

He hadn't realized it, not until now, but he'd been _anticipating_ getting into it with the criminals. He felt content after following up on clues, he felt alive when in a fight, and he felt accomplished when he left evildoers for the police.

By comparison his normal-life had taken a drab almost unfeeling monotony; like the cinematic effect sometimes applied to deserts or dreams to make them fuzzy, except that instead of operation on film, this was operating on emotions. He had the feeling that the world had been a much more vibrant place.

"All clear." Robin said as he touched down on the roof, next to Batman who was waiting there.

Batman nodded once in acknowledgment and remained crouched.

Minutes passed in silence.

Finally batman spoke. "Go home."

It was terse, – not unusual from Batman – almost curt, – again not unusual – but it was also harsh. Something that Richard Grayson hadn't been familiar with experiencing from Batman; hardness, yes.

"What about you?" Robin asked, wondering what he'd missed. "Did you pick up something on your patrol?"

"No." Batman replied, "I have a meeting with… an associate."

'Ah, that explains it.' Robin thought, 'He doesn't like having to rely on others, not for detective work. Question is: what case is he working on that has him stumped?'

Robin thought about it all the way to the Bat-cave but came up empty-handed. All the cold-cases were well and truly cold, and all the new cases were straightforward.

Whatever it was though, Robin felt a little buzz of hope: it could be something big that he could throw himself into, something he could lose himself in.

• • • • • • • • • • •

Garth had been true to his word, when Kaldur asked to talk he'd provided a good ear to hear, and after a heartfelt talk that lasted an hour and a half, Kaldur found himself dead tired… utterly drained emotionally. Sleep would come very easily tonight, but he felt a good deal better.

"I have tickets to a play, tomorrow night. Topo is friends with the writer and helped produce some of the artistic props." Garth said as they lazily drifted along the tides and currents together. "It is a comedy and supposed to be quite funny… and I think it would do you good to laugh."

"You are right." Kaulder replied, to drained to even consider laughing or give it much thought. It was good to have friends you could trust, friends who cared, and Garth was the very best of friends.

• • • • • • • • • • •

"So?" Batman asked, waiting for the man in the faceless mask to turn away from the items he'd been pinning to his wall and connecting with threads of red, yellow, or green yarn to older items already pinned thereon. It was an impressive web of people, events, dates, circumstance, and coincidence. In short, it was the wet-dream of many conspiracy theorists.

"I'll get on it. It is intriguing…" The Question scratched the back of his head; then looked at his fingers, dandruff. Not good. Someone could use the DNA to identify him… he would have to make a note to check to see if there might be a link between shampoos and DNA testing facilities, later though. "What could one hope to gain by killing Wally West? Why out in the middle of nowhere… and how to do it _without a trace_ while he was moving that fast?"

"Yes; this is an intriguing puzzle… very interesting." The Question said, as he pulled out a pen and wrote his facts on a white Post-It note before tacking it to the wall. On yellow Post-It notes he wrote the questions he'd just asked and affixed them more or less circularly around the first note.

"I'll leave you to it then." Batman nodded, he understood how people had their own methods and The Question certainly had his own method… despite being fairly paranoid the man was a brilliant detective, in fact Batman rather liked the idea that it was _because_ of his paranoia that he was so good a detective. In any case, The Question's unorthodox thinking turned up leads that most wouldn't find.


	4. Chapter 4

"There are friends who are 'friends', and there is a friend that is closer than a brother."

– Proverbs 18:24

Vic Sage knocked on the door of the West's residence… the doorbell was out, obviously. A warm wind was gusting, spreading its deceitful lie that summer wasn't over, and in a few weeks the temperature would drop… he'd have to remember to get wool socks, they might be a bit more uncomfortable but they wouldn't be as susceptible to the cold when worn wet like cotton and synthetic-fiber would. Interesting how _those_ socks came about.

The door opened, cutting short his train of thought and revealing the haggard face of a grief-stricken mother. No, it wasn't going to be easy on her… and it wouldn't "get better", not for a long time.

"Could I come in?" he asked, painfully aware that his inquiries were about to cause even more pain for the grieving family. "I'm investigating your son's death; the League wants to make sure that your…"

Question broke off what he was going to say, it would sound insensitive, so he amended it to: "that there was no foul play involved."

The woman stared at him blankly for a moment, taking in the blue overcoat and fedora… and the faceless mask, which probably didn't help. There seemed to be a moment where she was going to refuse, but she finally stepped back and opened the door, gesturing him inside. She nodded, saying something about how she was expecting such a visit and then changing the topic by offering tea, or cookies, to the faceless man in her home.

"Tea, please." Question said, casually not missing a beat, despite not having a mouth to drink it with while in costume.

The Question took in the room: the pictures showing family, the general arrangement of the house, and the books on the table. It looked like two picture albums and a scrapbook full of newspaper clippings about The Flash and Kid Flash with the sloppy handwritten annotations of a young male alongside.

'Interesting.' The Question thought as he thumbed through the scrapbook, making notes on a notepad he produced from an inner pocket. There were quite a few possibilities just here, and one of the notes implied the existence of time-travelers… time-travel was always sticky business, and it seemed that there were various… 'styles' – for lack of a better word – in which altering the past was achievable or impossible, and where if-possible did or did not alter the future wherein the actor came from. Antikythera was proof of changeable-past, and The Flash had related some time travel stories proving the unchangeable-past… it was one possibility, and it would be the most challenging to prove if it turned out to be the case.

· · · · · · · · · · ·

Zatanna helped Robin disembark Miss Martian's bioship, the boy-wonder had tried to stand on his own and nearly collapsed before Zatanna reached him. The ankle had been severely twisted on the just-completed mission, stopping Bialya from taking over Qurac, and Megan was acting… shaken, despite her claims of being much better.

The ruse they had pulled, with Zatanna imitating Queen Bee's appearance had proved successful; Megan had said that she couldn't do it, not after her battle with Psimon. Fortunately, though, Zatanna did know spells for altering appearances and voice and was able to put on a rather decent showing, if she did say so herself.

They weren't originally going to stop here, but their involvement with the Bialyan's military operations in the area _had_ been the root-cause of Garfield's injury, even if it was inadvertent. She knew that Robin had taken it hard, as if he blamed himself for not prognosticating the impact of their actions.

After a few minutes the team had gathered in the Logan's living-room and was hearing Marie relate the good news: that her son had stabilized and that he even said that he was Miss Martian's "blood brother" now. Zatanna couldn't help but smile at that; it was so stereotypically 'little-boy' that the eight-year old would say that it was impossible for her not to smile.

There was a minute of awkward silence which Megan broke tentatively, "I'm sorry about Megan. When I was on Mars, I watched the show a lot… and I always felt a connection with your character, maybe it was the similar-sounding name, or the way her problems were all managed in 22-minutes… that's why I wanted to look… _be_ like you"

"Oh, you don't have to apologize; you saved my son." Marie comforted the martian, pulling her into a hug. "You're family now."

It was a sweet moment, touching, but stoked up Zatanna's curiosity. 'What had happened before, when they had been together?' Zatanna made a mental note to talk about it with Megan later.

After a few minutes of catharsis between the other two women Megan asked to see Garfield and she went to check on her new blood-brother.

"Do any of you want a light snack before you leave?" Marie inquired to the rest of the team as the martian left.

For an instant Zatanna thought she would hear Wally voicing an enthusiastic affirmative… before the realization that he wasn't there hit her a moment later. As if in slow-motion she recognized the same thought go through her teammates's faces.

"Did I say something wrong?" Marie asked, as she saw their various expressions, afraid she'd committed some grave faux pass.

"No." Superboy answered in his usual terse manner.

Zatanna almost winced at the rude abruptness and felt the need to explain "our friend, Kid Flash, recently died… and he liked to eat."

"Oh… I see." Marie replied, sinking into thought. It was sad, but living close to the wild did present an education into the nature of death… it was something she and Garfield had learned years before, when her husband died, and it was a hard thing to deal with, even now, she would sometimes miss him in the most painful way. "If you would like, you can stay here a few days."

"Thank you," Robin said, over-exaggerating the truth a little, "but we have to get back; Batman will want a debriefing as soon as possible."

"I'll get Megan." Zatanna said as she rose to her feet and headed toward the young boy's room.

As she entered the hallway she saw two figures in the doorway: Megan and Queen Bee.

"llits dna tnelis eb!" She called out, forcing her magic to hold the monarch immobilized and mute. "Megan!"

"No!" M'Gann took to the air eight inches, looking frantically over the queen's shoulder to see Garfield… asleep and still well. M'Gann collapsed in relief as Zatanna ran up to check on her friend.

"What were you doing, you could have hurt Garfield!" M'Gann lashed out angrily, partly because of the boy's state and the threat the monarch had put on it, and partly because she had been about to accept her offer, and partially because she was _tired_ from her fight with Psimon, and… and… she didn't know. She just wanted to cry, everything was so wrong right now.

· · · · · · · · · · ·

"What do you think?" Batman asked, looking at the Martian Manhunter.

"To lose percise control like that is not unheard of after an emotionally jarring event… but I did not think M'Gann was at that high of a risk."

"The psychic blast knocked everyone in a quarter-mile unconscious." Batman replied, reiterating his point.

"I will have a talk with her, explain that such outbursts even in battle could cause injury, and offer her training."

"Good." Batman said, before being interrupted by his communicator. A few moments later he relayed the news to his companion, "We have Queen Bee in custody."


End file.
